Episode Report Card Deborah: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Jew Of Arcadia
By Deborah | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.25.2004
Back at the Girardi house, Beth knocks on Kevin's door. She comes in, saying his mother told her he wouldn't mind. He closes his laptop and asks if she's okay. She kinda snorts and you can see tears in her eyes: "I just finished the deposition." He invites her to sit down. She says, "They just kept trying to twist everything I said, you know? Make it seem like you didn't care what happened." She sits on the bed. "So I yelled at them." Kevin: "Cool." He is so still in love with her. Beth: "I just kept thinking…I just kept asking myself, you know…what if…what if I didn't pick a fight with you that night? You know, maybe you wouldn't have gotten in the car." Kevin wheels over to her and says it wasn't her fault. Beth wishes she could just take back that night. I think it's safe to assume you've got lots of company. Beth: "I don't understand why this is happening. Are we just supposed to forget about all this…go back to our lives?" Kevin doesn't know. He reaches over and takes Beth's hand. She sighs and puts her other hand on top.
Helen's reading on the couch when Will comes home. She says he's late. He says he was celebrating: "Ryan finally cracked." The kid gave them a description, so they've got something to go on. There's a little spring in his step as he comes over and kisses Helen, who says, "Thank God. Why didn't you call me?" Will's over at the bar, and says, "It was a long day. But -- gotta hand it to Lucy[fer]. She's really something." Helen: "Really." Will: "Ryan was doing his usual whine and sulk, and she comes in and apologizes for bringing him in on the convenience store bust. She says, um…she understands how he feels. She had me fooled." She sure has. Also: what the hell is so extraordinary about that? Helen asks: "What convenience store bust?" Will dismissively tells her about the bogus charge. Helen's dismayed: "False charges? Aren't -- aren't you worried his testimony won't hold up?" Will: "Look, I'm trying to find the guy who killed Judith. This is how business gets done." Helen, sighing a little, seems more dismayed: "You never used to talk like this before." Will: "Excuse me?" Helen: "Well…making false arrests, strong-arming some scared kid, and telling me that's how business is done. What are you, Dirty Harry?" Little shout-out to the forums there. Will, heading for the stairs, tells her she doesn't understand. Helen: "Do you?" He stops. She asks, "Did you even…question what you were doing?" He just goes upstairs without saying anything else. This isn't looking good. Seriously, what is going on with him? Wasn't he the guy who risked his neck to bust all the corruption in the Arcadia police department and local government? But then wait a minute -- wasn't there some reference, early in Season One, about Will having gotten in trouble in the distant past for not doing things by the book? Or am I just imagining that? I went combing through recaps to try to find it, but I'm running out of time to make my deadline here and I don't have time to read any more of them chasing what might be a figment of my imagination. Finally: is Will perhaps just desperate to put more distance between himself and his increasingly religious wife?
Back at Party Central, Friedman is enthusiastically leading a conga line around the floor. Shouldn't there have been some sort of parental guidance warning on this episode? Grace and Luke fight their way past the conga line as someone snaps a picture of them. Grace complains, "Those pictures are gonna surface one day. Bat Mitzvah Vets for Truth are gonna ruin my life." Luke laughs and goes off to get juice. Sarah takes this opportunity to intercept her daughter and tell "Gracie" how wonderful she was: "So beautiful." Grace glances at her mother's glass and her mother says it's just ginger ale. Grace gives her mother a tight smile. Sarah: "This is your night." Grace keeps on with the tight smile as she says, "I am not going there this time, Mom." Sarah seems slightly chagrined: "Don't you think I can change?" Grace just gives her a sad look. She doesn't say anything for a bit, and then: "I love you, Mom. Thank you for today." She hugs Sarah and walks off as Friedman's conga line snakes through.